Let's play a little game of education policy and research trivia. Read the below statements regarding the for-profit sector and try to guess when these statements were made.

In college, I was once asked to figure the half-life of a nuclear bomb, which seemed like a waste of brain power in my opinion. The process involves taking derivatives, which requires division ... which to a word person like me involves boredom. Why would the mid-point for radioactivity lingering in the environment possibly be important if there would be no one around to write about it? The question seemed pointless and the answer, which pinpointed a time several hundred years in the future, held no meaning for me.

Take a moment to put yourself in a student's shoes. You are at a crossroads in life and desire something more. You know you'll have to work hard for your future and stretch yourself to accomplish your dreams and so you do what it takes. The economy and the pressures of your social image, family expectations and the promise of a career path point you to continuing education. The words from admissions departments, former graduates, publications, marketing, etc. all draw you to accept huge loans that you can't imagine ever paying off in your current life. But your current life is about to change, isn't it?

The third round of negotiated rulemaking didn’t go as well as we hoped. The new definition of gainful employment is basically making the government responsible for tuition costs. What is incredibly ridiculous is that not only does the Obama administration believe the government should be the ones creating jobs, but now they may shut down an important source of job training and preparation for careers that require more expensive training. Why create jobs for an untrained workforce? And what schools will be able to charge a tuition that maintains the 8% debt ratio being proposed? Hmmm ... maybe the community colleges? You know, those schools that fail to meet the standards career colleges are already held to!

When we allow (yes, it is up to those of us who elect these politicians) the government to run businesses, including schools, they seem to lack appropriate problem-solving capabilities.

What is blatantly apparent to me in reading this article is that while Career Colleges may also increase tuition, they continue to improve the quality of education and focus on programmatic offerings that are based on where the jobs are in our economy. Students of these traditional universities don't seem to feel that way about "their" education providers.